By changing the laws in 2016, the county left it up to cities to craft penalties for any lobbyist who fails to submit logs of their exchanges with elected officials.

The goal of the practice is to ensure government transparency, but some cities haven’t drafted any sanctions. Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis and Coconut Creek Mayor Josh Rydell say they plan to look into changes to make lobbyists accountable.

Under the county’s ethics laws, it used to be up to the government officials to log their calls, meetings and emails. But after April 2016, the responsibility of documenting those meetings shifted to lobbyists.

County officials say no lobbyists have been investigated for failing to log meetings. But if lobbyists were to not disclose communications, “it violates the public trust,” said Trantalis, who plans to raise his concern with other commissioners as early as Tuesday. “It's an issue we need to examine.”

In Coconut Creek, Rydell said he, too, plans to call his city’s attorney and likely bring up the issue for city consideration. “I’m the guy who gets in trouble if they [lobbyists] don’t log it,” Rydell said. “That’s how I view it and that’s how I think it should be viewed.”

Broward County code requires lobbyists in all cities to log their exchanges with elected officials within three days. The records must be filed with the city. If lobbyists aren’t logging their communications, Fort Lauderdale doesn’t do anything, because its codes have no established punitive action, Trantalis said.

He recently realized this after he called Broward County’s government watchdog agency, the Office of the Inspector General. It said it has no jurisdiction over lobbyists.

Trantalis suspects the city of Fort Lauderdale’s records likely aren’t a complete representation of all the lobbying done in the city. The records rely on what lobbyists report to the city, and lobbyists may not have incentive to log all their activities if no one is scrutinizing the records, he said.

Weston City Clerk Patricia Bates said her city doesn’t have an ordinance penalizing lobbyists who don’t log, and she wouldn’t even know how to enforce it if there was one.

Trantalis and Fort Lauderdale’s interim city attorney agreed it was the City Commission’s responsibility to ensure lobbyists are reporting their work, he said.

“Lobbyists are given the right to represent clients, but we require them to do a very simple administrative task,” Trantalis said. The honor system “fails, in many respects, to communicate to the public who these lobbyists are talking to.”

In all Broward cities, the lobbyists’ logs include their names, who they represent, which public officials they spoke with and how they communicated. Still, some logs appear to have inconsistencies. On Fort Lauderdale’s registered list, one lobbyist is named “Test O’Test” from the firm “Test Test.” In the logs for the city of Oakland Park, a lobbyist recorded one meeting that happened in the year 2232.

Lobbyists may use any device to access the city’s website and add contact they’ve had.

One lobbyist, Stephanie Toothaker, recently told the South Florida Sun Sentinel she couldn’t remember if she had logged with the city of Fort Lauderdale calls she had with four commissioners. She was phoning in regards to plans for Pier 66, a residential and commercial project that commissioners plan to vote on Tuesday.

Still, Toothaker said she had reported other meetings to be recorded on the city’s logs, but they weren’t showing. It’s unclear what happened: The city’s IT department checked the system and confirmed it was working as it should, Fort Lauderdale spokesman Chaz Adams said.

Cities differ in how they share these lobbying logs with the public. Some cities, such as Davie, require the public to visit in person to view the logs, while other cities publish the logs online. Fees to register as a lobbyist range from no cost to $150, depending on the city, and some governments require lobbyists to provide additional documents, such as signed letters from their clients and notarized forms.

Lobbyist Seth Platt said the “loosey-goosey” lack of consistency between the cities’ systems creates confusion. “Every city has so many different rules, it’s like navigating a minefield,” he said.

Some cities, such as Hollywood and Hallandale Beach, already refined their laws. In Hollywood, the city manager would be responsible for investigating any infraction, and the City Commission would review the city manager’s findings. In Hallandale Beach, any potential violation would be investigated by the police’s internal affairs division.

It violates the public trust when lobbyists fail to disclose communications with the commission. It's an issue we need to examine.— Mayor Dean Trantalis

There’s no point to having lobbyists keep records if they can’t be enforced, said Ben Wilcox, research director of Integrity Florida, a non-partisan government watchdog and research institute.

“City officials should know better than to have record-keeping done by lobbyists that no one can check on to see if they are in compliance,” he said. The point of keeping such logs is to make “government transparent, and so that the public can see the forces brought to bear on the government,” he said.